Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Fibonacci Series was named after Leonardo of Pisa, a member of the Bonacci family.Born in 1170 and died 1250.He was educated in North Africa and studied mathematics with foremost scholars. His father, Guilielmo, held a diplomatic post. In 1200 the son ended his travels and returned to Pisa.

Leonardo introduced the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system and the use of Arabic numerals into Europe. He also introduced the Fibonacci Series to western European Mathematics.All this info I gleaned from Dr Ron Knott's website hosted by the Mathematics department of the University of Surrey, UK.www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fib.html

Thus the Fibonacci Series was not invented by Mr Bonacci.I believe that in those days The Middle East, including Baghdad, was the pinnacle of Art and Science. My guess is that the Fibonacci series goes back even further, to ancient Vedic times, when there were wise humans who understood the secrets of nature.

The best evocation of Vedic times that I have encountered is given by the Siberian Wisewoman, Anastasia, in the Ringing Cedars of Russia series, 9 books, by Vladimir Megre.http://www.ringingcedars.com/ (also .au or .ru)Especially see Book 6, "The Book of Kin", from page 94 for several chapters.

I would like to think that enough people care about Mother Earth, to help to save her and her beauty and magnificence. May it be so.

Back in August 2009 I managed to catch an interview on ABC Radio National's Artworks program, Amanda Smith chatting with Margaret Wertheim about the Exhibition at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum during Science Week . It was The Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Reef. Hundreds of people contributed to this colorful show and you can see some of it at http://www.sydneyreef.blogspot.com/
Science meets handicrafts with a view to bring attention to the plight of coral reefs.
When doing craft, time stops.
The algorithm used was " crochet 3 stitches, increase 1 in next stitch. " It's not rigid, you can play with the numbers, to create the shapes of nature.

Then, believe it or not, I caught the moment on radio when Emma Ayres on ABC Classic Breakfast in April gave us the news that Reuters announced the winner of the 2009 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title for a Book was "Crocheting Adventures with the Hyperbolic Plane" by Dr Daina Taimina. "Splendidly eccentric" said one newspaper, another said "superb juxtaposition...", "the two worlds collide in a captivating and completely breathless way".
You can view this elegant and erudite book on www.amazon.com/Crocheting-Adventures-Hyperbolic-Planes-Taimina/dp/1568814526
and you can see her words on http://www.hyperbolic-crochet.blogspot.com/

Hello Emma! I believe our ABC Radio has the most wonderful music and radio journalism - I listen whenever I can -- and people all over the world listen online www.abc.net.au/rn or www.abc.net.au/classic

In the 1970s and 1980s I read "The Secret Life of Plants" and :Secrets of the Soil" by Peter Tomkins and Christopher Bird. In Chapter 9 of the latter, The Vortex of Life, the Fibonacci series of numbers, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, was mentioned. ....internal corkscrew patterns... similar to seashells and animal horns....The Vedas describe the Universe as ellipsoidal. In the 1930s a professor of Mathematics said the entire universe revolves around a geometrical form which is a rectangular hyperbola. Schwenk wrote -vortexial formative processes in nature .......
Reich wrote of the creation of matter from the throat of cosmic vortices such as nebulae.....

Back then, I thought how good it would be to make a Nautilus shell form in accordance with the Fibonacci series. Curiosity compels one to follow certain directions.

The big clue was an article in my favourite UK magazine, Resurgence. http://www.resurgence.org/ in the July/August 2007 issue, on page 43. I quote verbatim:-
"Ïn 1997 Dr Daina Taimina discovered how to make models of the geometry known as hyperbolic space using the art of crochet. Until that time most mathematicians believed it impossible to construct physical models of hyperbolic forms, yet nature has been doing just that for hundreds of millions of years. It turns out that many marine organisms embody hyperbolic geometry, among them kelps, corals, sponges and nudibranches."
The website was given of The Institute for Figuring http://www.theiff.org/
Co-directors Margaret and Christine Wertheim are curators of a splendid exhibition of Crocheted Hyperbolic Coral Reefs. (Also check out the computational origami of Robert Lang, laser physicist!). There I found more from Dr Taimina - "as you move away from a point, the space around it increases exponentially....knit or crochet...ruffle and crenellate. Íncrease 1 stitch in every 3, you get a pseudosphere- the hyperbolic equivalent of a cone.....if you increase once in every stitch it becomes increasingly crenellated....you can increase 2 or 3 times in every stitch...."

Thus I also began the adventure, trying to figure out how to crochet the Fibonacci Series.

To knit, use the same patterns but work backwards and decrease in accordance with the Fibonacci series by knitting 2 together.

With variations, the sky is the limit.
Someone could even make a huge model stuffed with pillows.
I live in a caravan on 2 acres, without electricity or a car, so I prefer small models.

One can embroider stripes up the shape.
There is a species, Nodilittorina tuberculata, which has a pattern of knobs along the spiral. I tried to copy this by regularly bunching up the edge as I sewed up.
Janthina is pale violet on top and dark violet underneath.

On Feb 14 this year, Valentine's Day, I noticed that this very same hyperbolic shape for snail shells can also configure into a bivalve! One coils the shape from the 2 pointy edges. When I have photos of complete models I will post them.

I am told that thousands of people are making crocheted hyperbolic shapes all over the world and I am glad to discover more ideas.

It took quite a bit of perseverance to sew up and pad the more complicated models, but it is not impossible!
The yellow is 4 ply equivalent cotton and the edge was made in blue sewing machine cotton.

Very fine tapestry wool, 2 ply, was used for most of the models. Half treble crochet was my preferred way. Next post will be photos of all the shapes of shells that I have made up to date, including the knitted ones.

About Me

Born in Germany January 1946 and migrated to Australia in 1949.
B.Sc from UNSW 1970.
Name is Tiiu Vanamois.
Email is tmvanam@gmail.com .
Blogs are www.awhatifworld.blogspot.com
and www.acolourfulpost.blogspot.com
and www.biomathcraft.blogspot.com.
-------The first is to do with my Land and ecology of the World.----The second is about Art and Health.----The third is mainly a study of Mathematical Series, namely Fibonacci, Lucas, Bifurcating Series. Plus varius related themes--------- Of big interest is the making of models using crochet or knitting ------if anyone is interested in working with this, please do so ------------There are two asterisks **, after all posts in date index to do with crochet or knitting or making patterns for models-------------------- 4 asterisks** ** for Tables.